Light Fell
Evan Fallenberg, 2007
Soho Press
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781569475362
Summary
Twenty years have passed since Joseph left his family and his religious Israeli community when he fell in love with a man, the brilliant rabbi Yoel Rosenzweig. Now, for his fiftieth birthday, Joseph is preparing to have his five sons and the daughter-in-law he has never met spend the Sabbath with him in his Tel Aviv penthouse. This will be the first time he and his sons will have all been together in nearly two decades.
Awarded the 2009 Stonewall Prize for Fiction, the first and most enduring award for GLBT books, sponsored by the American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table. (From the publisher.)
More
The sumptuous meal Joseph Licht prepares in his Tel Aviv beachfront penthouse is even better organized than his customary elegant dinner parties, but then his guests are more special than usual: in honor of his own fiftieth birthday, Joseph will host his five grown sons and his new daughter-in-law for the entire Sabbath.
It is the first time the family will be reunited in twenty years, since the day Joseph left behind his entire life—wife Rebecca, sons, father, the religious moshav where he grew up—in favor of a riveting affair with his soulmate, illui Yoel Rosenzweig, the genius rabbi of his generation. Their love affair has long since ended, but its echoes reverberate over twenty years and into the lives of Joseph, Rebecca, and their sons in ways none of them could have predicted. In this novel of desire and need, of choices and consequences, no one is unaffected. (From the author's website.)